Low Fare Africa

Boma, Sudan (CNN) — Flying high above the dry, sweeping plains of southern Sudan, Paul Elkan is a man on a mission.

The director of the region’s Wildlife Conservation Society, he is tasked with surveying a wilderness that has been off-limits to international researchers for the best part of 30 years.

“It’s one of the last wilderness areas in Africa, one of the last great wilderness areas in the world,” Elkan told CNN. “You have a very large savannah ecosystem that is adjacent to the largest wetland in Africa. So there are a lot of superlatives here in southern Sudan.”

For many years, conservationists feared the distinctive wildlife documented by researchers in southern Sudan before the conflict had been hunted to extinction.

But recent surveys in the region have revealed that not only did many animals survive, they are thriving.
Read the full article and watch a video clip at CNN.com

Great Plains Conservation is currently offering some great luxury packages in Kenya and Tanzania. Spend a week in Kenya at Ol Donyo Wuas and Mara Plains camps for $3867 per person. Or travel to the exclusive remote wilderness of the Selous Reserve’s Lukula Camp for $2,446 per person. Both of these rates include all meals and game activities as well as intercamp flying, ensuring great value for money.

Click the below thumbnail for full details or email us at info@karell.com to find out how you can take advantage of another great safari offer.

The latest installment of Wilderness Safaris’ Unusual Sightings comes to us courtesy of Glynis Humphrey, Brian Rode, Onkabetse Mothupi, and Michael Hensman at Vumbura Plains Camp in Botswana:

The sable antelope, Hippotragus niger, has shown some dramatic declines in parts of its range in southern Africa. Despite fairly intensive study in the Kruger National Park and other areas, the reasons for these declines are imperfectly understood.

It is for this reason that an investigation into the home range and habitat use of the species has been initiated in the Vumbura area in the Okavango Delta. Here a relative stronghold of sable exists, allowing an investigation into what factors allow the species to thrive here. Michael Hensman, an MSc student from the University of Witwatersrand and HOORC (being jointly supervised by Prof Norman Owen-Smith and Dr Casper Bonyongo), has just begun his research project using the relatively new technology of Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS) collars to produce fine scale movement data from three different herds.

We have so far managed to fit two collars onto two sable cows and are indebted to the assistance of veterinarian Dr Dane Hawk and gyrocopter pilot Mark Muller without whom the exercise would not have been possible. Dr Casper Bonyongo also lent valuable field experience during the operation.

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Last night’s edition of CBS’ 60 Minutes highlighted the ongoing struggle against illegal lion poisoning going on in Kenya. Farmers, whose financial livelihoods depend on their cattle, can ill afford to have lions poaching from their herds. Consequently they often resort to disposing of problem lions. The result has been an alarming drop in the lion population. View the full report on the issue and how conservationists and governments are working to solve it below.

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